Ukraine has claimed to have struck a Russian industrial facility producing fuel for missiles, as Moscow says it has foiled several assassination plots on senior officers.

Kyiv said on Thursday that its air force had had carried out a strike in Russia’s Rostov region on a factory which was used to produce solid fuel for ballistic missiles used in attacks on Ukraine.

The Russian president said that Slovakia “would be happy to provide their own country as a platform for negotiations”.

He added: “We are not opposed, if it comes to that. Why not? Since Slovakia takes such a neutral position”.

Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico visited the Kremlin this week and is said to have suggested his country for talks.

Putin said he was resolved to end the war, as it comes to the three-year mark early next year. Incoming US president Donald Trump has also said he wants to bring an end to the fighting.

It did say what damage was caused in the attack or give an exact date, but said it had been struck in the past few days.

It comes as Russia claimed it had foiled several Ukrainian plots to assassinate senior officers and their families using bombs disguised as power banks or document folders.

The country’s Federal Security Service said it had arrested four Russians accused of helping plan the attack, just weeks after a high-ranking oddicer was killed outside his Moscow apartment by a bomb attached to an electric scooter.

It comes weeks after Ukraine’s intelligence service killed a top Russian officer outside his apartment building in Moscow by detonating a bomb attached to an electric scooter.Putin open to peace talks in Slovakia as reports claim North Korean

Sunil Yadav, a notorious drugs smuggler with deep ties to criminal operations in India, was shot dead in a shootout in Stockton, California. Yadav, who was wanted in multiple criminal cases across Rajasthan, gained notoriety for his involvement in smuggling narcotics into India, primarily through the Pakistan route.

Reports suggest that Yadav had been on the run for years, evading authorities after escaping India. It is believed he fled the country using a fake passport under the name of “Rahul” and relocated to the United States about two years ago. Before his escape,

Yadav had been involved in several high-profile criminal cases, including the murder of a jeweler named Pankaj Soni in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar district. Though arrested in connection with this murder, Yadav was granted bail and managed to escape justice by fleeing abroad.
Incident Details

Sunil Yadav’s life came to an end when he was gunned down in a shootout in Stockton, California. Authorities in California and India are jointly investigating the circumstances surrounding his death to determine how it occurred after he had evaded capture for several years.

Sunil Yadav, a notorious Indian drug smuggler with a history of international criminal activity, was killed in a shootout in Stockton, California, on Saturday night. Gangster Rohit Godara, a close aide of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, has claimed responsibility for gunning down Yadav, calling it an act of revenge. The shootout occurred in a residential area after police received a tip-off about Yadav’s location. Officers attempted to apprehend him, but he resisted, leading to an intense confrontation. According to the Stockton Police Department, Yadav opened fire first, forcing officers to respond. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No officers were injured in the

The company has pulled ahead of Nvidia and Microsoft in the race to the monumental milestone, thanks to an about 16 per cent jump in shares since early November that has added about $500 billion to its market capitalization, as per a Reuters report.Apple nears historic $4 trillion milestone ahead of Nvidia

Apple is closing in on a historic $4 trillion stock market valuation, powered by investors cheering progress in the company’s long-awaited AI enhancements to rejuvenate sluggish iPhone sales,

The latest rally in Apple shares reflects “investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and an expectation that it will result in a sup ..Apple nears historic $4 trillion milestone ahead of Nvidia

Apple nears historic $4 trillion milestone ahead of Nvidia

Valued at about $3.85 trillion as of the last close, Apple dwarfs the combined value of Germany and Switzerland’s main stock markets. The Silicon Valley firm, driven by the so-called iPhone supercycles, was the first U.S. company to hit previous trillion-dollar milestones.Apple nears historic $4 trillion milestone ahead of Nvidia

In recent years, the company has attracted criticism for being slow to map out its artificial intelligence strategy, while Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta Platforms have pulled ahead to dominate the emerging technology.Apple nears historic $4 trillion milestone ahead of Nvidia

Apple AAPL.O is closing in on a historic $4 trillion stock market valuation, powered by investors cheering progress in the company’s long-awaited AI enhancements to rejuvenate sluggish iPhone sales.

The company has pulled ahead of Nvidia NVDA.O and Microsoft MSFT.O in the race to the monumental milestone, thanks to an about 16% jump in shares since early November that has added about $500 billion to its market capitalization.

The latest rally in Apple shares reflects “investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and an expectation that it will result in a supercycle of iPhone upgrades,” said Tom Forte, an analyst at Maxim Group, who has a “hold”

Congress stopped the clock ticking toward a government shutdown early Saturday after the Senate followed the GOP-controlled House’s lead in passing a stopgap measure that runs through March.

The latest: The resolution came after a Trump-backed plan to suspend the debt ceiling failed in the House Thursday and was nixed from the funding plan.

What he’s saying: Despite President-elect Trump’s Friday comment on Truth Social that “If there’s going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden administration,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), told reporters after the vote he was in “constant contact” with Trump.

State of play: An earlier version of the stopgap measure lost 38 Republican votes and gained two Democratic ones before legislators pushed a revised bill through both chambers.

The approved resolution will fund the government until March, provide about $100 billion for disaster aid and extend the farm bill for a year, but legislators nixed elements of the earlier plan that would have suspended the debt ceiling until January 2027.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called it a “laughable proposal.”

What was in the first bill?

Congressional leaders unveiled legislation Tuesday to keep the government funded until March, setting up a showdown — with Johnson in the central pressure cooker.

It included around $100 billion in disaster relief, an extension of the farm bill and restrictions on investments in China. The 1,547-page bill includes wants from both Democrats’ and Republicans’ wish lists.
But some measures raised eyebrows: Notably, a pay raise for members of Congress (their first since 2009), caught the attention of Musk and others bashing the bill.
The mid-March extension date tees up another funding fight toward the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office.

What’s next, and what does it mean?

Lawmakers were able to push a deal through just after a midnight Saturday deadline, and Biden signed the resolution later Saturday.

The legislative save means stopping a shutdown just as lawmakers were meant to go on holiday recess.

For thousands of non-essential federal employees, a shutdown would have meant they stopped working.

That maneuver was also a face-plant, with the House voting it down decisively on Thursday; notably, 38 Republicans joined the Democratic caucus in rejecting it, incensed by the debt limit ploy. In seeking to browbeat congressional Republicans into submission ahead of taking office, the Trump-Musk administration instead provoked a greater uprising of spending hawks aligned with the Freedom Caucus than the Biden White House ever managed to.

The final bill that won passage disaggregated the main spending priorities of the prior two continuing resolutions into three stand-alone bills: the principal government-funding ask, combined with a $110 billion package of hurricane and agricultural relief aid, and a major bill called the farm law, combining anti-poverty and agricultural reform measures. After all the oligarchic sound and fury that overtook the spending negotiations, the end result isn’t all that different than what the House had started with.

More than 100 Rohingya refugees from war-torn Myanmar have been rescued while adrift on a fishing trawler off the Indian Ocean island nation by Sri Lanka’s navy, bringing them safely to port.Sri Lanka Navy rescues over 100 Rohingya adrift in the Indian Ocean

The 102 people, including 25 children, were taken to Sri Lanka’s eastern port of Trincomalee, a navy spokesman said on Friday.Sri Lanka Navy rescues over 100 Rohingya adrift in the Indian

Hamas asserts a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza is possible if Israel “stops setting new conditions,” according to a statement.

The statement comes after sources briefed on meetings related to the ceasefire talks told Reuters that a deal is expected to be signed in the coming days.

Israel’s defense minister has vowed that it would maintain “full freedom of action” in the Gaza Strip after fighting ends in the Palestinian enclave, a day after raising hopes that a ceasefire and hostage deal was imminent.

Israel was “closer to a ceasefire deal than we have ever been,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said during a closed-door parliamentary committee hearing Monday. The comment was confirmed to NBC News by an Israeli lawmaker who was present.

An agreement to halt the 14-month-old war in Gaza and free hostages held in the Palestinian enclave could be signed in coming days with talks in Cairo making progress, sources briefed on the meeting said on Tuesday.

The U.S. administration, joined by mediators from Egypt and Qatar, have made intensive efforts in recent days to advance the talks before President Joe Biden leaves office next month.

“We believe – and the Israelis have said this – that we’re getting closer, and no doubt about it, we believe that, but we also are cautious in our optimism,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview with Fox News.
“We’ve been in this position before where we weren’t able to get it over the finish line.”

The sources said a ceasefire deal could be days away that would stop the fighting and return hostages held by the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

In late September, an experienced pilot at low-cost European airline Wizz Air felt anxious after learning his plane would fly over Iraq at night amid mounting tensions between nearby Iran and Israel.

He decided to query the decision since just a week earlier the airline had deemed the route unsafe. In response, Wizz Air’s (WIZZ.L)

, opens new tab flight operations team told him the airway was now considered secure and he had to fly it, without giving further explanation, the pilot said.

“I wasn’t really happy with it,” the pilot, who requested anonymity from fear he could lose his job, told Reuters. Days later, Iraq closed its airspace when Iran fired missiles on Oct. 1 at Israel. “It confirmed my suspicion that it wasn’t safe.”
In response to Reuters’ queries, Wizz Air said safety of crew and passengers was its utmost priority and would not be compromised “in any circumstances”, adding its decisions on where to fly are based on stringent risk assessments in collaboration with third party intelligence specialists.

“Our aircraft and crews will only fly in airspace that has been deemed safe and we would never take any risks in this respect,” Wizz Air also said in a statement.
Reuters spoke to four pilots, three cabin crew members, three flight security experts and two airline executives about growing safety concerns in the European air industry due to escalating tensions in the Middle East following Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023, that prompted the war in Gaza.

Four doctors were killed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday, after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in surrounding areas, eyewitnesses told CNN.

Israeli troops also forced health care workers and patients to leave the facility, and destroyed critical medical supplies, according to a statement by Dr Hussam Abu Saifya, the hospital director.

In the early hours of Friday, the Israeli military sent two plain clothed messengers into the hospital, who told people over a megaphone to evacuate, Abu Saifya added. The military detained a “large number” of young men in the two-hour raid, including health workers and Palestinians who had sought refuge, added Abu Saifya.

Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, located in the northern Gaza Strip, forced the medical staff and patients to leave, and detained many of those present inside.

WAFA correspondent reported that Israeli forces blew up a residential block near the Kamal Adwan Hospital, resulting in the killing of several civilians and the injury of others. They also stormed the hospital, forced out the medical staff and patients and detained several people present inside.Israeli military kills four doctors in raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital

Mexico has announced its largest-ever seizure of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, as cross-border pressure mounts for the country to crack down on drug trafficking into the United States.Mexican troops seize a record fentanyl haul in northern Sinaloa

“These actions will continue until the violence in the state of Sinaloa decreases,” he stated.

On the same day, the Mexican government announced the detention of over 5,200 migrants and asylum seekers who were heading towards the US border.

Both actions are likely to be seen as a response to pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada unless both countries intensify efforts to combat drug trafficking and immigration.Mexican troops seize a record fentanyl haul in northern Sinaloa

“It is clear that the Mexican government has been managing the timing of fentanyl seizures,” said security analyst David Saucedo. “But under the pressure by Donald Trump, it appears President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is willing to the increase the capture of drug traffickers and drug seizures that Washington is demanding.”